SKY earlier this month made a decision to cease broadcasting the Travel Channel. This will be effective from midnight tomorrow.

In a statement on their website they have said:

SKY is committed to offering a broad and varied range of channels to its subscribers. We are constantly evaluating the value of our customer offering and while it’s not a decision that is taken lightly, it was decided not to renew the channel and focus on other opportunities available to us.

Last night there were a large number of incensed TV viewers who took to social media to complain that the free-to-air channels they were watching had become unavailable on the so-called premium pay TV service they were using.

Just before the end of TV3’s all important season premiere of The Block NZ, the free-to-air channels One, 2 and TV3 went dark on Sky. (See last night’s ratings)

Irony went into overdrive with customers complaining about paying for channels that are free to watch on the Freeview platform, which was unaffected by Sky’s latest technical glitch.

TVNZ told us it was a SKY HD technical issue that impacted the transmission of TV ONE and TV2 on that platform and that Freeview and SKY SD viewers were unaffected. TVNZ also said they would be making good with any advertisers impacted by the outage. Continue reading »

Cricket fans around New Zealand are pretty upset. The Blackcaps tour of South Africa isn’t being televised here because Sky was “unable to secure the rights”.

While hardcore fans who are desperate to watch coverage will still be able to see the games via other means online, it does raise some questions about Sky’s ability to secure content in the new media landscape.

Having been the home of live cricket on TV in New Zealand for quite some time now, most were expecting the South African tour rights to be finalised at the last minute to ensure fans weren’t left in the lurch, much like the Rugby League rights have done in recent years. Last minute negotiations have still found in favour of the fans but this latest incident shouldn’t just concern fans of sport, but the shareholders in Sky who must surely be considering whether a panic over media stocks that has happened recently in the US is about to play out here. Continue reading »

After the recent subscriber loyalty issues that Sky has been quizzed over on their Facebook page, Sky has decided to disable public postings.

While many companies have embraced social media and engage with their customers online to provide an additional level of service, those who have no need to compete due to their monopoly status only need to appear to be playing the game. Continue reading »

This week, after Sky’s marketing department ran out of ideas, they created an arbitrary birthday celebration with 25 prizes up for grabs for existing subscribers with extra entries based on the length of time subscribers have had a decoder.

However, the “birthday celebration” is about as meaningful as a Briscoes sale. If the birthday is based on when Sky began broadcasting then the 25th anniversary was six months ago. The company, itself, was founded 28 years ago. Continue reading »

As part of a long-term deal with The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand, SKY Movies customers will have exclusive Subscription TV and SVOD (subscription video on demand) rights to upcoming films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, including Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Cinderella, Inside Out and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In addition, these new release movie titles will be on SKY GO and NEON.

Also as part of this expanded relationship, SKY is excited to announce the launch of a brand new family movie channel – SKY Movies Disney – on July 1. SKY Movies Disney will be available as part of the Movie Tier and screen Disney’s family movies in HD, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Continue reading »

This media release just in from Sky that attempts to explain why they failed so miserably to deliver their premium service this afternoon.

SoHo’s planned simulcast of the first episode of Season Five of HBO’s Game of Thrones was delayed today due to streaming issues experienced by the international company supplying the live feed.

SKY has been working with the HBO endorsed secure supplier to test their delivery system over the past couple of weeks and the testing had been faultless.

However due to a technical issue with the supplier’s system as they were attempting to deliver the live feed for satellite transmission this afternoon the playout failed. Their efforts to rectify the situation were unsuccessful and therefore the episode was unable to be simulcast in New Zealand. Continue reading »